President Obama, Health Care, & White-Trash Distraction

First of all, President Barack Obama is a natural-born US citizen, born and raised in Hawaii (for the most part). So the relentless whisperings, or, more accurately, caterwauling from many stupid Republicans remind me of the persistence of zombies. You think they're dead, but no--they stand up again and come at you with fangs dripping with blood. They're stupid. Let me repeat that for anyone who doubts the President's authentic birth record: they're stupid. Stupid.

Anyways, the big topic now that this stupid distraction means to hide is health care. The US, as has been repeated ad infinitum, is the only major civilized nation without guaranteed national health care. This is obscenely inexcusable. I've heard it said many times, but as long as health care is a "for-profit" industry, it cannot improve with regard to accessibility. We can nibble away at the huge problems with it, but we can't really get anything done as long as we hang onto the "single payer" handle.

Dumb people hear "single payer" and freak out. They think "me" when they should think "us." The frightening "single payer" is the government, of for and by the people yadda yadda yadda. Millions of Americans already on a "single payer" program, like Medicare, are happy with it.

Here's the problem, as I see it: such national health care programs focus on prevention rather than only treatment. This sounds bad, but only if you're dumb enough to go into a fugue state when you hear "single payer." Mind you, prevention does not supplant treatment. What it does is try to get at the crux of the ailment in question.

I have MS, obviously, and the treatment for it sucks. I've complained here and elsewhere about the use of interferons. They simply only delay the obvious debilitation that is the disease's main objective. Private, for-profit insurance companies love the existence of such endless treatment because it's expensive and, well, endless--a true, shamelessly greedy capitalist's dream. I embrace capitalism, and the competition that it advocates in order to improve upon past designs/models/etc. However, with regard to personal health, such competition impedes, rather than advances, progress.

Somewhere along the line, the country focused more on treatments than cures. I suspect it has to do with the treatment of AIDS that we've slowly been lulled into accepting while forgetting about the ultimate goal of its eradication. National health care would recalibrate our direction in this sense, and we could look for ways to lower or end costs due to prolonged treatment by curing some diseases.

Cures. That's what we should focus on, and not only treatments that will make pharmaceutical companies more profitable. When it comes to health, there should be no such thing as profit or even balance sheets. Obama knows this, especially since he is faced with a sick economy. He doesn't want to stanch the proverbial bleeding and let coagulation be the final word. He wants to find out why you/we are bleeding. Bank bailouts and everything else might not look like a "cure," but we cannot simply walk away from the problem.

We need to cure it. Obama knows this, and is trying to apply pressure both to the nation's gaping wound (aka health care) and to massively dumb Republican, and "centrist" Democratic, congressmen who want to scare Americans into further lethargy. Inaction now is not an option, though, and Obama wants to get us away from enemy fire, which in this instance are pharmaceutical lobbyists.

They should get out of the way and let Obama pass. They need not worry, because he's a natural-born American. Plus he's their president, so they should really GET OUT OF THE WAY.

R